Kennings Quotes & Sayings

Old English poetry is characterised by a number of poetic tropes which enable a writer to describe things indirectly and which require a reader imaginatively to construct their meaning. The most widespread of these figurative descriptions are what are known as kennings. Kennings often occur in compounds: for example, hronrad (whale-road) or swanrad (swan- road) meaning 'the sea'; banhus (bone-house) meaning the 'human body'. Some kennings involve borrowing or inventing words; others appear to be chosen to meet the alliterative requirement of a poetic line, and as a result some kennings are difficult to decode, leading to disputes in critical interpretation. But kennings do allow more abstract concepts to be communicated by using more familiar words: for example, God is often described as moncynnes weard ('guardian of mankind'). — Ronald Carter

I'm His girl. You don't mess with God's girl. I got a sign on my forehead that says: You better be nice to me, for my Father owns the world. — Gianna Jessen

That's how religions and histories make their way into the world, not through battles and conquests, but through poems and kennings and songs, passed through generations and written down by scholars and scribes ...
After all, words are what remain when all the deeds have been done. Words can shatter faith, start a war, change the course of history. A story can make your heart beat faster, topple walls, scale mountains
Hey, a story can even raise the dead. And that's why the King of Stories ended up being King of the gods, because writing history and making history are only the breadth of a page apart. — Joanne Harris

When Group is over, we all pile into the same elevator and nobody says a word. That's the strange thing about elevators, it's like they have this power to silence you. I've just been in group therapy where people will reveal the most intimate details of their lives to complete strangers, yet in the elevator nobody can say a word. — Augusten Burroughs

I still love you," he says, "but I have to go my own way." "So you want to break up?" I ask, trembling. "I guess so," he says. I fall to the floor, like a woman in the twelfth century fainting at the sight of a hanging in her town square. Later, my mother comes home from a party and finds me catatonic, lying across the bed, surrounded by pictures of him and me, the mittens he bought me at Christmas folded beneath my cheek. I am crippled by what feels like sadness but what I will later diagnose as embarrassment. She tells me this is a great excuse: to take time for myself, to cry a bunch, to eat only carbohydrates slathered in cheese. "You will find," she says, "that there's a certain grace to having your heart broken." I will use this line many times in the years to come, giving it as a gift to anyone who needs it. — Lena Dunham

Death anxiety is the mother of all religions, which, in one way or another, attempt to temper the anguish of our finitude. — Irvin D. Yalom

We allow justly that the Holocaust has permanently altered the consciousness of our time: Why do we not accord the same epistemological mutation in what imperialism has done, and what Orientalism continues to do? — Edward W. Said

Beowulf stands out as a poem which makes extensive use of this kind of figurative language. There are over one thousand compounds in the poem, totalling one-third of all the words in the text. Many of these compounds are kennings. The word 'to ken' is still used in many Scottish and Northern English dialects, meaning 'to know'. Such language is a way of knowing and of expressing meanings in striking and memorable ways; it has continuities with the kinds of poetic compounding found in nearly all later poetry but especially in the Modernist texts of Gerard Manley Hopkins and James Joyce. — Ronald Carter

Calamities are unavoidable, in love and travel.

All it takes to make it to the end of the road are some good Survival Tips. — Vivian Swift

Attention is riveted on what is tangible, useful, instantly available; the stimulus for deeper thought and reflection may be lacking. Yet human beings have a vital need for time and inner quiet to ponder and examine life and its mysteries ... Understanding and wisdom are the fruit of a contemplative eye upon the world, and do not come from a mere accumulation of facts, no matter how interesting. — Pope John Paul II

I want each one of my children to be a hundred times greater than I could ever be. Everyone of you must be a giant- must, that is my word. Obedience, readiness, and love for the cause- if you have these three, nothing can hold you back. — Swami Vivekananda

A philosophy which no longer asks the question of the meaning of life would be in great danger of reducing the merely accessory functions, with no real passion for the search for truth. — Pope John Paul II

Looking around, do you see ruins? That was to be expected. He who lives in the world of words does not get along with things. — Sergei Dovlatov

To have someone who's got a strong individual voice that is allowed to be heard is quite increasingly rare. These people need to be cherished. — David Tennant

Those who seek for much are left in want of much. Happy is he to whom God has given, with sparing hand, as much as is enough. — Horace

Little faith sees God's hand in great things. Established faith sees God's hand in little things. — Ralph Bouma